Week 2 Readings
cy·ber·net·ics, introduced by Nobert Wiener - how systems (biological, mechanical, or social) use feedback loops to maintain stability, regulate behavior, and process information.
Dictionary definition: the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.
This talk by Jasia Reichardt recounts the 1968 Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, curated by herself.
What I noticed first was how well documented this exhibition was and how the talk was entirely an overview of it. The natural follow up question is what are the exhibitions that are being curated today that will still be referred back to in 2085, 59 years from now? This line of inquiry attempts to take a negative view on the work being produced today.
Edit: a classmate mentioned NewInc’s opening.
Projects showcased at this exhibit are strong in idea and translation of that idea into a visual. The majority of them are skeleton, components and internals first. Not many have enclosures or housings, whereas today’s modern fabrication and even manufacturing orders to, say, China, make it very easy to hide the ‘skeleton’. The techniques used are similar to those we do today, but there’s something about these projects that still feel novel. Perhaps it’s the film in which its captured that speaks to me, but there’s a timelessness to it all that I don’t know will ever be replicated.
My point is that the what was being done in 1967 was are open source by nature - open for people to view. Whoever is engaging with the art work is able to see what’s it made of. Therefore every component was also very thought out. The cinema space, especially, was thought out to place connection first.
Q: Is this computer art? No - mechanical art. Feedback loops → info theory.
Maya Man at Bitforms
- Veo model for video generation.
>>>>> Maya Man’s book has her code.
Book
Content List
- Max Bense, "The Projects of Generative Aesthetics" (1965, English translation). Approximately 3 pages (4-7).
- Frieder Nake, "Computer Art: A Personal Recollection" (ACM, 2005). Full paper.
- Lindsay Caplan, "The Social Conscience of Generative Art," Art in America (January 2020). Full article.
- Grant Taylor, "Routing Mondrian: The A. Michael Noll Experiment," Media-N (Fall 2012). Full article.